Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The Holiday Approaches

Christmas is 3 days away as I write this post.

This year has been especially hard for many, many people. In our local area, Toys for Tots has been hit hard and they are having a hard time meeting demand. For those of you not familiar with the mission of Toys for Tots – I’m guessing many of my non-U.S. readers may fall in this category – it is a noble one that has been ongoing for as long as I can remember.

TFT Santa

Toys for Tots is one of the missions of the Marine Corps Reserve and has been since 1947. The mission, ultimately, is to deliver Christmas gifts to those children who are needy. In Londonderry, Bravo Company, 1/25, is the sponsor unit. They and the people who volunteer to help them are coming up short this year, mainly because of the economy. This year, so far they have collected approximately 60,000 gifts and toys. Their goal is approximately double that.

I’m thinking because of some of the publicity that’s been recently generated may help, although it may not be enough.

As I write this I’m working in Goffstown. Last night I attended a class in Malden on emergency procedures for dealing with an emergency at Seabrook Station. It was an interesting class; I attended a similar class a little over 2 years ago in Manchester, and the perspective is a little different. Anytime I’ve been in classes involving the potential for nuclear emergencies I’ve been morbidly fascinated with what could go wrong. It just seems as though there is so much that could happen. Hopefully nothing will go wrong, but you simply never know.

I need to close the loop with the end of the semester. We had both the lab practical and the written exam this past Friday. The written exam was on line. It was open book and open notes, there were 46 questions, and we had 75 minutes to complete it. I resolved to use the notes and the text at a bare minimum, and I managed to score a 90%. And I got a 94% on the lab practical. This was good enough to bring my final grade to an 86.44% – a solid B.

I’m definitely not complaining – I figure I might have done much worse. Considering the things that I had happen during the first half of the semester, I think I did rather well.

Next semester is A&P part II. And I’m looking forward to it.

4 comments:

Karen Brook said...

Great post, as always, Walt. The needs are huge and as you know are felt everywhere. And about A&P, a B is MOST commendable! Regarding the concept of nuclear incidents at the Seabrook Station, I have a fabulous story to share with you whenever we do get to have that really big cup of coffee. It's a humdinger :-) P.S. You're probably scattered all over the place on Christmas Eve, but my Prelude for the 7:00 will be the George Winston piano setting of "Some Children See Him".

Unknown said...

I wish I weren't working Christmas Eve, but unfortunately I am... :( I would dearly love to hear that, though. And I am quite certain that you will knock it out of the park!

TOTWTYTR said...

Good for you on the grades, Walt. It's not easy going back to school while working full time.

Unknown said...

Thanks, TOT. And have a Merry Christmas - you and the TOT family.